The site of the attack was sealed by members of the khasadar force who were trying to locate the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, a van of a cement factory in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Nowshera district was blown up in a remote control bomb attack and a police mobile passing nearby was also damaged.

Khyber and Nowshera lie in the northwestern parts of Pakistan with Khyber being the country’s seven semi-autonomous tribal districts near the Afghan border, rife with homegrown insurgents and home to a number of militant organisations.

The tribal region of Khyber also links several agencies to each other, serving as a north-south route within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

Moreover, the bulk of supplies and equipment required by foreign troops in Afghanistan is shipped through Khyber, although US troops increasingly use alternative routes through central Asia.